In situ conservation

In-situ conservation protects a species by protecting its natural habitat -- literally, conservation 'at home'. Declaring an area such as the Kanha forest a tiger reserve is a classic example: by safeguarding the habitat, the species living within it are automatically protected too, and this is generally regarded as the most appropriate and effective method of conservation. Conservationists have identified around 34 biodiversity hotspots worldwide -- regions with an unusually high richness and density of species -- which need to be safeguarded through legislative protection as well as public awareness and active conservation efforts. India alone is home to four of these global hotspots: the Western Ghats, the Indo-Burma region, Sundaland and the Eastern Himalayas; protecting these hotspots could, by some estimates, cut the overall rate of extinction by nearly 30%. India currently has 14 biosphere reserves, 90 national parks and 448 wildlife sanctuaries, and Maharashtra alone accounts for 5 national parks and 11 sanctuaries.

In-situ conservation also extends to keeping traditional crop varieties alive within farming and horticultural practice -- for example, the Pawra tribal community of the Satpuda region in Maharashtra has long preserved several traditional varieties of corn with distinctively coloured kernels. Indian culture has long intertwined nature with tradition through sacred groves -- stretches of forest set aside and protected in the name of a deity -- found in places such as the Khasi and Jaintia hills of Meghalaya, the Western Ghat regions of Maharashtra and Karnataka, the Aravali hills of Rajasthan, and parts of Bastar, Chanda and Sarguja in Madhya Pradesh; local tribal communities in these areas traditionally do not allow even a single branch to be cut from a sacred grove, though growing pressures raise real questions about how safe these groves remain today. A more recent restoration approach, the Miyawaki technique developed by the Japanese botanist Dr Akira Miyawaki, uses densely packed native saplings planted in layers on specially prepared soil to grow a self-sustaining, diverse nativ …